Article of the Week

Week of 2/13-2/17
Directions: Complete all steps below, which includes annotating, answering questions, and margin
notes. You should read this article multiple times before Friday. Be prepared to share your thoughts,
ideas, and opinions on Friday!

Step 1 : Read the article. Use the coding we practiced in class to annotate the article. You can use
the following options:
* important idea + you agree X you disagree

! surprising idea __ Underline a specific line that you Circle a word you dont know-try to
found interesting guess the meaning using context
clues

? you are wondering about that idea

Step 2: Read the article a second time. Number the paragraphs. Read the article carefully and
make notes in the margin. Notes should include:
The 5Ws:
Who is involved in the text?
What is the main subject of the text?
When is the event of the text happening?
Where is the event of the text taking place?
Why is this text written? What is the point?
Comments that show that you understand the article. (A summary or statement of the main
idea of important sections may serve this purpose. You could also [bracket] the paragraph and
write the GIST.)
Questions you have that show what you are wondering about as you read.
Notes that differentiate between fact and opinion.
Make a connection (another event, another historical movement) with something you read (no
personal connections!)
Observations about how the writers strategies (organization, word choice, perspective,
evidence) and choices affect the article.

Step 3: Read the article again noting anything you might have missed during the other reads of the
text.
Step 4: Answer the questions that follow the article. Be sure to use evidence from the article when
necessary.
 Notes on my
PRO/CON: Cars that drive themselves could soon thoughts,
reactions and
become the norm? questions as
By Tribune News Service 9.14.16 I read:

PRO: Driverless cars could allow people to stay in the suburbs, and save
them money
More than at any time in world history, technological advances are having a major
effect on the way people live their lives.
Just 30 years ago, few would have imagined it would be possible for every person
to own their very own pocket-sized supercomputer that would allow them to do
virtually anything, from finding a date to buying a house. Yet today's smartphone
is a marvel.
Now, the driverless car is another society-shifting invention that has the potential
to become an everyday reality in the not-so-distant future.
Driverless Cars Could Be Here By 2019
In April, Volkswagens Johann Jungwirth predicted the first self-driving cars could
appear on the market as early 2019. In May, General Motors Richard Holman
said driverless cars could become a reality in 2020.
State governments have already started preparing for the new technologys
arrival.
California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada have recently passed laws governing
their use. More than a dozen other states are currently considering similar
legislation.

Private Car Ownership Will Decline

Traditionally, new technological developments put more products in the hands of

consumers. However, many industry experts predict driverless cars will actually
limit private car ownership.
The tech-savvy consumer of the future will no longer spend thousands of dollars
on a new car. Instead, they will open an app on a computer or smartphone and
call for their very own driverless chauffeur.
Driverless cars have the potential to radically change the way people spend time
with their families and commute to and from work. Most likely they will also alter
where and how people live.

Suburbs Versus Cities

Recent data show that more and more people are moving to big cities. However,
surveys suggest that people of all ages still prefer to live in affordable, convenient
and spacious suburbs.
One 2015 poll showed that as many as two-thirds of young people would choose Notes on my
suburban living over life in the city. thoughts,
reactions and
If Americans still prefer the suburbs over city centers, why are so many choosing questions as
to live in cities? I read:
A number of factors are responsible for the shift from suburbs to cities that has
occurred over the past two decades. One of the most important is the increasingly
globalized economy, which is drawing people looking for work to major centers of
technology and commerce.
International centers of tech-commerce have developed in regions such as
Californias Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle in North Carolina and in major
cities such as Chicago and New York.
Professionals who want to work in these growing tech fields or in related
industries often need to be close to the action.
Suburbs Offer A Better Quality Of Life
This does not mean, however, that cities typically offer a better quality of life
indeed, in most cases, they do not.
Sales taxes and income taxes are highest in some of the countrys major cities,
such as Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
Crime and pollution remain significantly worse in cities as well. In addition,
regulations that limit businesses, especially small businesses, are worse in states
with large cities, including California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois,
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Driverless cars have the potential to completely change the way Americans think
about where they live. The commute from suburb to city center will become much
less strenuous, so people will feel less need to live in the city itself. People will no
longer need to pay the high rents, taxes and fees common in big cities in order to
work comfortably in those places.
With driverless cars, driving to work will feel more like sitting at home on the couch
watching a favorite television show.
If that is what the future looks like, most of us will not mind the extra commuting
time.
-Justin Haskins is the executive editor of Heartland Institute, a conservative and
libertarian public policy think tank.
**************************************************************************************

CON: Driverless cars pose major safety issues, and relying on them is
unrealistic

A nationwide network of millions of self-driving cars whisking suburban commuters

to work is a pleasant utopian vision. However, getting to that point would be far
from simple.
Self-driving cars have been in development for years, and their backers claim the Notes on my
vehicles will be ready to dominate the car market in the near future. thoughts,
reactions and
Having a nation of commuters use these vehicles, they claim, will reduce traffic questions as
congestion and improve highway safety. They say they will make even the far I read:
suburbs more convenient places to live.
Fully automated cars could make up 10 percent of global vehicle sales a year by
2035, some have predicted.
However, before those suburban dwellers can order such cars, some gargantuan
problems must be overcome.
Safety Issues Abound
First, the technology used in those cars creates serious safety problems, and
huge improvements must be made before they can safely handle streets.
Developing fail-safe software for completely driverless cars would require
rethinking how software is designed. The software in phones, laptops and other
devices is not designed to operate for extended periods without crashing or
freezing and those errors would be deadly in a car.
Also, driverless cars rely primarily on pre-programmed route data, so they do not
obey things such as temporary traffic lights. They also have problems figuring out
when objects such as bits of paper garbage are harmless, so they may swerve for
no reason.
Computers Cannot Replace Humans
The vehicles simply cannot deal with the unexpected adventures that fill everyday
life. Until the cars can self-drive at all times, humans are going to have to be ready
to resume control.
Meanwhile, Googles self-driving car has already run into another perplexing
safety problem human drivers.
Recently, one of Googles self-driving cars came to a crosswalk and did what it
was supposed to do it slowed down to allow a pedestrian to cross. However,
despite the slowing down, the human safety driver hit the brakes. The pedestrian
emerged unhurt, but Googles car was hit from behind.
Maps For Millions Of Miles
For driverless cars to work properly, detailed maps of streets and highways need
to be loaded into the computers that guide them. Currently the maps for Googles
self-driving cars have only been designed to handle a few thousand miles of road.
Developing a nationwide self-driving car system would require countless amounts
of effort and money. To make a national system work, a company would have to
maintain and update data on millions of miles of roads.
The development of these vehicles would also inevitably mean more state and
federal regulation covering how, when and where driverless cars can be used.
Regulators are notoriously cautious and whatever regulation they come up with is
likely to hamper the rapid spread of driverless cars.
Legal And Privacy Issues Notes on my
thoughts,
The use of driverless cars would also raise issues of legal responsibility, such as reactions and
who should be held responsible in the event of a crash the passenger, the questions as
carmaker or the designer of the computer system. Such complicated legal issues I read:
could take years and many lawyers to sort out.
There is also a potential privacy problem: Each cars computer would store
massive amounts of highly personal data that federal intelligence agencies, with
their fondness for spying on us, might well grab to use against drivers.
No Love For Driverless Cars
Totally self-driving cars will likely not be cheap, either. One report says the ability
to drive anywhere with no human input would add some $10,000 to a car's sticker
price, at least during the first decade the technology is on the market.
There is also the problem of getting people to accept them. Cars are not just
transportation they reflect our personalities and tastes. Imagine someone who
loves zooming down the highway behind the wheel of a sleek and speedy sports
car. It will be hard to get them to accept riding as a passenger in a
not-very-exciting computer-controlled vehicle.
-Whitt Flora is an independent journalist who covered the White House for the
Columbus Dispatch and was chief congressional correspondent for Aviation Week
& Space Technology magazine.

Directions: Use the article to answer the questions below.

1. Define the following words using context clues from the text.
tech-savvy: commute: perplexing:

2. What is the article mostly about?

3. Directions: Analyzing the authors claim Complete the chart below using evidence from the article
AUTHOR: Justin Haskins,
Executive editor of Heartland Institute
Authors main claim or argument in the debate:
REASON 1:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 1.
REASON 2:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 2.
REASON 3:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 3.
What persuasive devices does the author use?
___ Appeals to emotions
___ Uses data or scholarly research
___ Tells why the other sides argument is weak
___ Other:
AUTHOR: Whitt Flora
Independent journalist
Authors main claim or argument in the debate:
REASON 1:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 1.
REASON 2:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 2.
REASON 3:
Name one reason the author gives for his claim.
List evidence the author gives to support Reason 3.
What persuasive devices does the author use?
___ Appeals to emotions
___ Uses data or scholarly research
___ Tells why the other sides argument is weak
___ Other:
 EVALUATE: Which author do you think makes a more effective case? Do you spot any
weaknesseslike a bias or missing informationin either argument?

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Rubric

Discern

Outcome Target Not Yet Meets Standards Exceeds Standards

Selects textual evidence See below Student selects text Student cites multiple pieces of textual evidence that
that supports analysis on ways to evidence that connects to clearly connect to her ideas and support analysis of the
and inferences improve and supports her ideas. text.

Ways to improve this outcome: ___ use evidence that supports your ideas,____ when evaluating you thoroughly discuss your
evidence in more than one sentence, ___ other: